


Levitate

by WhereDestiniesMeet17 (orphan_account)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anxiety, Bad Decisions, Gen, Guilt, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Panic, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Post-Season/Series 03B, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 20:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2283159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/WhereDestiniesMeet17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A week after they trap it, Stiles leaves.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Or, the one where Stiles leaves Beacon Hills in the middle of the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Levitate

**Author's Note:**

> Just a brief note. Stiles operates in a state of high anxiety and near panic for most of this fic. There is also a lot of guilt and self loathing. I don't know if that could be triggering to anyone, but I felt that I should put up a note. So, use discretion and have a nice day. :)

A week after they trap it, Stiles leaves.

He does so in a fury of motion, dragging things into his backpack. His chest is too tight, tears stinging his eyes. It's three at night, his father's cruiser gone. He is alone in the house, but everything seems so loud.

He grabs his phone at the last second, slinging the half zipped bag over his shoulder. He slams out of his room,  hears items hitting the ground, and runs.

His feet trip on the stairs, he hits a wall, and keeps going. He goes out through the garage, slips into his jeep. He shakes as he turns the key and pulls out onto the road.

The light from the porch dims as he speeds away, road swimming in front of him.

By the time he realizes what he's doing, Beacon Hills is behind him and the sun is rising.

He keeps going.

-

He pulls over, somewhere after the first sign welcoming him to Nevada but before the trees thin out into small bushes and endless dirt. He finds a rest stop and gets out, his arms and legs shaking. He walks until he feels like he isn't going to collapse. He's cold, his shirt starting to get stiff from fear sweat and the tears that he hadn't been able to dash in time.

He tries not to think about what's he's done, about what he's still doing. The darkness around his heart, the Mariana Trench that just keeps growing inside him, gaps at him. He feels like he's being dragged down, but he treads water.

He goes into the bathroom.

He gets a glance at himself in the mirror as he washes his hands and jerks back. He blinks, but it's all him. It's his body and he's the pilot. There is no one inside his head, but it's never felt less real.

He starts to shudder, fear creeping under his skin. He tries to remember more than a few minutes of the drive, but it's all been a blur of terror and panic. He grips the sink and counts his fingers, breaths around the panic and anxiety that is churning his stomach when he comes up with only ten.

He ends up dry heaving into the toilet for fifteen minutes anyway, the cold press of grief against his heart, a steel grip around his stomach. Someone knocks on the door and he shouts at the to leave.

They don't and he finally pulls himself to his feet. They keep knocking and he walks over to it, a insult on his tongue.

He wrenches the door open, the words, "for fuck sake, give me a minute," on his lips.

The woman, soft and unassuming, smiles at him. He knows, like he's always known, that she is bad news. He steps back and she follows, shutting the door behind. Her eyes flash, not gold or red, no nothing that simple. They flash blue and her teeth grow long.

He backs away, knows he reeks of fear, grief, and sickness. He smells like prey and her eyes are like a predator. He smells like wolf and she looks at him like a happy meal.

She's not like the others. She is something worse. Her teeth aren't canines,  but the same lethal saws of a shark. He hits the wall and the lights go out.

Stiles covers his face, hoping that there will be enough left of his body to send home. There are two empty plots, one with his name on it. He was always meant to be buried on the right, to be together with his mother after this is all over. He hopes his father won't join the family reunion for a few years.

He doesn't count on it.

There is a crack, a thump, then the woman yowls. She screams like a stepped on cat, hissing and scratching. 

Stiles opens his eyes, the lights coming on. The door is ripped off its hinges, pressed flush against the woman. She's pinned to the wall, thrashing one clawed hand at it, scratching down the metal. He can see her face, the blue cat eyes and sharp teeth looking right at him.

He scrambles past her, avoiding her reach by an inch. The door groans as she rakes her hand down it, but it presses against her firmly.

He sprints to his jeep, climbs inside the old girl, and roars out of the parking lot.

He leaves the rest stop in the rear view mirror.

-

His phone starts to ring at twelve, a bristling sound that causes him to lurch and drive off the road. He gasps, clinging to the wheel, one tire spinning uselessly over a ditch. He backs up, barely managing to get back onto the shoulder.

Cars pass, rocking the jeep. He unbuckles, crawling into the back to grab his phone, where it's tucked between a pair of boxers and a notebook. He presses it to his mouth as it stops, Scott's name flashing for a moment.

He holds his phone to his face, looking around. The trees are gone, the cool air pressing around him. He wonders what the hell he's doing, why he's miles from home and still going.

He starts to laugh, because this is the stupidest thing he's ever done, might just ever do.

The woman flashes back into his mind and he shudders. A ball of warmth settles beneath his lungs and he takes a rapid breath, trying to put it out. He sits the phone down and gets back on the road.

He ignores the phone when it rings again.

-

The sun starts to set early, plummeting towards the horizon. He's tired, so fucking tired, but he can't stop. It feels like he's leashed himself to the sun, being dragged away, instead of driven.

He tries to be honest with himself, really tries. He's running.

This is his fault. He could have fought harder, could have done what needed to be done when it started. He could have saved them if he hadn't opened the fucking door.

He's not sure if he's being truthful or not. It's hard to tell when everything blends together, reds of blood and fire, the purple of bruises both punched and drawn on his skin.

He tries to be honest, just once. The thought of leaving has crossed his mind before, has drawn his thoughts to the distance horizon. He has thought about just taking his things, turning off the phone and never looking back.

He never thought he would do it. He couldn't leave them, not when he needed them, not when they needed him.

They didn't need this though.

-

The sun is long gone when lights start to appear the horizon. The phone still rings every few minutes, but he doesn't answer. It beeps sometimes, letting him know that he is collecting quiet a host of texts.

The phone dies as he is passing through Las Vegas.

The city is somehow bigger than the movies made it, but smaller than he thought. The buildings, hulking and aglow, seem to lean over the roads, all jammed with traffic. He feels small, insignificant. 

It isn't a new feeling.

He hasn't felt anything but fear and hatred since he finally got back control. His toes sweat in his sneakers, his nose is cold, but it's all facts, little things that register far away.

With the lights bathing him, he feels less like a monster, more like a man.

He still sees their eyes, still feels blood on his finger tips. He puts the peddle down and gets the hell out of town.

-

He wakes up when his car hits a guard rail. He jolts awake, jerks the wheel. The jeep jumps back onto the road, swerves into incoming traffic, then swings back into the right lane. He shakes through the whole ordeal and is still shaking when he pulls off onto a dirt road that for all he knows could lead right into the heart of the desert.

He presses the wheel to his face and takes great shuddering gasps and starts to laugh, because this is his life.

The first time he feels alive in weeks is when he almost died. He laughs with tears streaming down his face and his chest aching with it. He laughs until he can't, then he cries because all he wants to do is crawl into bed, his bed.

He wants to wake up in a warm house, wants his father to pat his shoulder before leaving for work. He wants Scott to be waiting out front of the school, wants to help solidify the pack with stupid games of catch the rabbit, wants to snap at the betas for pushing him a little too hard.

He wants to be whole again, to not feel like he's a gaping wound. He doesn't want to see dying eyes every time he tries to sleep, doesn't want his nightmares to be full of counting fingers and the fear that he won't wake up.

He wants to be a teenager who runs with a wolf pack.

He doesn't want to be a teenager who killed two dozen people.

-

He stays on the dirt road for hours, sleeping in fitful bursts and flailing limbs. When he wakes, he is inevitably dawned back to sleep. He hasn't slept in what feels like months, maybe his whole life. He drags himself out of the jeep when his bladder protests. He pisses half hidden by a large bush, which is dull brown with winter. It's cool, but not cold.

His head aches and he's groggy. He's hungry in a way that makes him nauseous, makes him shaky and heavy. He pulls back onto the main road with a grimace, the side of his jeep scratched from his brief counter with the rail.

He passes through a small town with a diner. He pulls in, stomach trying to eat itself. He parks next to the front door. He wonders if the pack is looking for him, if Danny has been pulled into the shit storm he left behind. He looks at the camera as he passes under and thinks that he isn't trying to hide.

He just doesn't want to be found, not yet.

-

The diner is well maintained, in a small town kinda way. The lady looks at him like he's trouble, but he smiles and orders the biggest thing there. He takes a seat at the counter, playing with the place mats. He realizes a little dully that he's in Arizona. This is the furthest east he's been since his mother passed.

The food tastes like unclean teeth for the first three bites. Then it tastes like heaven and he eats until his stomach feels tight and there is a pressure at the back of his throat. He feels sick with it, but he keeps going until it's gone.

He drinks a pot of coffee by himself, liking the buzz that sets under his skin. It warms him up, makes him feel toasty after all the days of sharp breaths that have his nose prickling and stinging like a sneeze that isn't needed. It warms his throat and stomach, making him aware of the path it takes. The warmth spreads and it takes him a moment to realize that the coffee isn't the culprit. 

He sits the mug down with a clatter that brings the waitress a step closer to him. He smiles, leaving a pile of crumpled fives and a few ones. He thinks it's enough, probably more than.

A salt shaker overturns down the counter as he pushes to his feet. He stares at it, then leaves in a hurry, the road pulling at him.

-

It starts like heartburn. He half drowns himself in milk after the diner, but it doesn't stop. He coughs and his eyes water. He has milk split down his shirt from his hasty spit take when it started going down the wrong way. He sits the milk on the floor board, wiping at his mouth.

The heat spreads out, taking over his chest and stomach, reaching towards his mouth, down towards his intestines. He folds his arms, breathing through the ache, the harsh flares.

It feels like a supernova is happening inside of him, rushing out from his core. It pulses, pushes out into his arms and legs, finds a place behind his eyes. He curls into himself, gritting back whimpers and half moans.

It burns through him, devours him inside out. He wonders if it's a type of justice, karma getting him back for all the shit he's done. He wonders if Peter would laugh if he knew.

Something tells him he wouldn't.

-

The supernova does what all stars do after expanding. It sucks in a huge breath and shrinks to a little pinpoint. It waits.

-

He gets back on the road at one. He leaves the milk in a trashcan beside the store. He plugs his phone up, turns on the radio. He rolls down the windows, exhausted and hating the heat that still clings to his skin. He sings to the radio and ignores the questions bubbling in his mind.

The questions shout, try to get his attention. He half way wants answers, the other half of him thinking he doesn't deserve them. Whatever is happening to him, it's dangerous.

He had thought, when he first came back to himself, that it was gone. The nogitsune has smothered him, had buried him deep in his own mind, surrounded by puzzles and painful lies, memories twisted to serve it's purpose. He thought it had killed the spark. All it had done was set kindling on top.

-

It's the morning of the third day when he realizes where he's heading. Arizona passes in a blur of cool air and dirt. He hits New Mexico with the radio fizzing out and coming back with a sassy Spanish pop song. He finds himself mumbling the words a few seconds behind, butchering them as he goes. He can speak three languages, but Spanish isn't one of them, as much as his mother wanted him to.

He finds the way better than GPS. The road twists and turns, but he never gets lost. He knows where he's going, knows it like the layout of his house.

The little town, an hour from Roswell and nestled in the desert, was where his mother was raised. Her father, Stiles' namesake, had settled down there when he was twenty five. He met his wife there when she got lost while traveling from the east coast to west. She never made it to the west, ended up spending the rest of her life in New Mexico with Zdzislaw Gemini Woźniak.

The house is a watered-down memory when Stiles finds it. He hasn't been back to it since he was six, the last time his family had taken a vacation. It had been left to his mother when her parents moved to Florida and had been left to Stiles when she died. His father had suggested selling it, putting the money in a college fund, but neither of then had wanted to let go of this piece of Claudia Stilinkski. 

He leaves his jeep in a daze, climbing the steps. The lawn is a thicket of dead grass, the windows covered in dirt. It has been sitting up for ten years.

He imagines that the neighborhood kids make up stories about it, call it the abandoned house. He tries to stick himself in their mind space and it slips over him like a hoody.

It's nothing like the Hale house, with a history of death and an appearance to match it. This house was a happy home, was left behind with love and the promise to return.

The kids wouldn't know that, would make up ghastly stories that their parents rolled their eyes at and denied, but secretly wondered about themselves They would peer into the windows and their curiosity would drive them to search for a key, maybe even long to just pop the lock and stroll in. In the end, the groaning of wind in the eves, or the wide open windows of neighbors would drive them home with a tingle of excited fear and the longing for adventure.

Stiles opens the door with a key with a thousand scratches on it. It belonged to her, was given to him. He goes inside feeling too tight in his own skin and memories of his mother bounding around in his head.

-

He writes his name in the dust collecting on the counter. He writes his full name first, then Stiles in big letters. Underneath it, he writes an old phrase, one his mother use to say. _Bez potrzeby wymówka, gotowe oskarżenie._

He stares at it and it sticks in his throat. He drags his hand through the dust and wipes it on his pants. He wanders around the house, taking in the niches, the little details that takes a searching eye to spot. He finds pencil marks on door way leading into the kitchen. He traces the worn words and smiles, watching his mother grow up in increments.

He finds old photos on the walls, ones his mother had said belonged to the home. He looks at the girl with brown hair and dark eyes, dangling from a broad man's arm, grinning at the camera. He has a lurch in his chest,  knowing that there is a photo like this at his own home, a reenactment of that moment done unwittingly by the next generation.

He leaves the photos behind,  venturing into the bedroom. One is done in muted shades of brown, the other in dull orange. He takes the covering off the bed in the orange room, settles onto the bed that had been too big for him last time. His feet hang off the end now, his head bumping the wall. He stretches out and closes his eyes, tries to will himself back in time, back to when things had been simple, before his parents sat him down and had to explain that his mother was going away, one day at a time.

He wants to go back to that moment and shake himself, to scream in his young face to hoard the moments, to treasure them. He wants to tell himself to hug his mother for an extra minute, to inhale the scent of sunshine and oranges that clung to her skin, before it was dampened by the metallic scent of sickness and medical supplies.

He wants to give his younger self a reason to kick Rafael in the shins, to promise little Scott that things will get better after he leaves. He wants to tell himself that Melissa's heart may break, but she's a tough cookie who is a great mother, both to Scott and himself when he looses Claudia.

He falls asleep mumbling all the things he would tell himself, the last one being to shut the door and never look back.

-

Nature whispers to him, talking in lost languages. He follows the call, walks out across the desert in tennis shoes and a thin over shirt. The moon is half full over head, a single cloud creeping up towards it. A hallo glows sharply around it, but he doubts rain will come.  He is cold, the desert holding frost like a baby.

He walks for a long time, the silence reflecting the stillness in his head, in his chest. The supernova is quiet, a deathly silence that promises destruction. He can feel it, can feel the inevitable conclusion.

He wonders of he'll survive, if he is the supernova or an unlucky planet near by, watching as the world ends in a drawn out breath.

He finds a nice place to wait, a cactus that reminds him of Santa Claus towering over him. He puts his head on his knees, counts moments passing by. He listens to the whispers, and slowly, he starts to hear words.

He breaks out in a cold sweat when he realizes that they are saying his name, that something out there knows him, knows everything.

He stands in a flail of limbs, heart racing. He spins, looking for the way back, but he's walked so far. He feels like he's lost at sea, a castaway. He flounders, looking for lights on the horizon, but there is only a sudden absence of stars to tell him it exists.

The words swell, joining with something else. It's another phrase, something his mother use to say after the first, a small smile on his face. She use to say it when he would start crying after breaking something in the house.

_"Żaden w swej sprawie sędzia być nie może."_

He claps his hands over his ears, screams at them to shut up, to leave him be. He screams at himself to wake up, but he only has ten fingers, can read the words he scraps into the dirt, can feel it when he pinches himself.

His throat hurts and he knows he's crying, but it keeps coming, the words growing in volume. Something builds inside of him as the tempo increases, the words merging together, echoing and resounding. 

The supernova explodes.

-

He stares at the words scorched into the hard packed dirt of the desert. They repeat a hundred times, all around him. The cactus is gone, the only remains a few pieces of green and needles embedded into the ground. The grass is gone, yanked up or burned, cast about like a hurricane. He looks at his hands,  but he's whole.

For the first time in a while, he feels okay. The words echo in his head every time he pokes at the memories that drove him from Beacon Hills. He watches a creature play with his body like a puppet, sees traps being set and people dying. He sees it, but the  words come to him.

He pushes past those memories, pushes into the place the he didn't dare go. He listens to Scott repeat the words that the others had said to him in different ways. It is the verdict to the trial Stiles didn't know he was participating in.

"It's not your fault. You didn't do it."

He doesn't want to accept it, even as the word scream at him. He clings to the guilt in his chest, because who else is to blame, if not him? He let it in, didn't he? It's his fault it killed.

It's not your fault.

It pushes in, wedges itself under the guilt. It pries it away, tells him to get the over himself, to quit hiding behind guilt.

It tells him to go home, to face the people who reach out with love, who forgave. It tells him to have the balls to reach back, even though he is scared to try, scared of what will happen if he tries to let someone in.

He turns from the words, looks back, and is surprised that he's behind the house. He's maybe a hundred yards out, but there it is, right where it hadn't been last night. He scoffs, walking to it.

The wind blows the words away.

-

He takes his backpack out of the jeep and dumps it in the bathroom. He goes behind the house and turns the water on. He watches it run for a while before climbing into the shower. It's cold and painful, but it wakes him up like he hasn't been in days. He's clear headed and at peace.

The supernova is gone, the wildfire burned out. He pokes at the spot and feels something fluid and warm in the space. He plays with it, wondering what it can do. He doesn't have mountain ash, but something tells him he could circle the state with just a handful and belief.

He dries off with an old sweatshirt before pulling on fresh clothes. He scrubs at his teeth with his finger, rinses out his mouth. He feels clean, like maybe the supernova did more than torch the desert grass. He feels like it burned out the darkness too.

-

He tests the place where the spark use to be by believing the dust gone. When he opens his eyes, the house practically sparkles. He laughs, the sound odd in the old house, odd out of his own mouth. He closes his eyes, believes the sheets off the furniture. The air stirs and the cloth ruffles at it hits the ground.  He grins and claps his hands, feeling like a child. He keeps doing little things like that until he's tired and his stomach is hot, like the magic - because that's what it is- has a physical home inside of him. He sits on the couch, hands cupped around his mouth and elbows on knees. He touches his smile and only feels a little shame for it being there.

-

The food on the pantry is all outdated, but cans are suppose to last forever, right?

He eats what might be corn, but could just as easily be beans. He eats it with a plastic fork he found in the back of a drawer, spooning it into his mouth. He turns the phone on and watches with mild dread as it spazzes out.

When it stops vibrating, he feels touched. His inbox is full of messages, most from Scott and his father, but a number from others, people he didn't think actual gave a shit.

He doesn't read them, he already feels enough like a giant asshole. He does skim through the names though. The numbers, some that he doesn't remember putting in, just keep listing. 

His father left forty, Scott thirty seven, Melissa twenty nine. Lydia left a few, no doubt ripping him to shreds. Issac, Kira, Derek, Cora, Malia. Even Peter.

There are two from Deaton, which he decides he needs to read.

The first says, **'it's natural.'**

The second says, **'come see me when you get back**.'

Stiles rolls his eyes, some of his humor braving the surface. The good doctor could have told him this before he freaked out and ran.

He types out a message as he finishes the can of questionable food.

His heart, a part of him he hasn't listened to, but has been guiding him anyway, agrees completely with the words.

**'I'm coming home.'**

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm not entirely sure what this is, but I got tired of it just sitting there, so here. It was written in a fit of Stiles feels right after I first watched 3B. So, angst. 
> 
> The two Polish Proverbs are below, along with there supposed translation. Sorry if they are wrong. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed or got something out of this. 
> 
> Żaden w swej sprawie sędzia być nie może.
> 
> Translation: No one can be the judge in his own trial.
> 
> English equivalent: No one can be the judge in his own case.
> 
> Bez potrzeby wymówka, gotowe oskarżenie.
> 
> English equivalent: A guilty conscience needs no accuser.


End file.
